A typical shaver comprises a motor mounted in a housing. When power is applied to the motor by manipulating a switch, the driving force of the motor is transmitted to a cutting head through a connecting member connected to a driving shall of the motor. The driving force drives an inner blade formed inside the cutting head to remove the hair from a user's face or body.
Outer blade is formed outside the head. The outer blade is formed in a mesh shape, and is in close contact with the cutting head. When the user puts the outer blade on his face or body to be shaved, the hair is inserted through the holes of the mesh-shaped outer blade and cut by the inner blade which moves reciprocatingly by the motor. By such a manner, the shaving can be performed promptly so that the user's face or body is smooth.
Since the conventional shaver is configured such that the cutting head is formed integrally with the housing, it is useful in shaving relatively short hair like a short beard or a mustache. However, the conventional shaver is not useful in shaving relatively long hair like a long beard. So, the user should purchase an expensive shaver with combined use for shaving short and long hairs.
Further, since the cutting head is fixed to the housing, it is impossible to shave smoothly along the curve of the human face or body. Accordingly, those skilled in the art have attempted to develop improved shavers for solving the above problems.
One of the prior art shavers is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 62-227395. The prior art shaver comprises a cutting head provided with inner and outer blades and a pivot shaft mounted near a top of the cutting head.
The cutting head pivots forward and backward on the pivot shaft so that the inner blade can follow the curved human face or body in diverse shaving directions.
However, since the pivot shaft is located near the top of the cutting head, a distance between the pivot shaft and the outer blade is short. When the outer blade contacts slantedly to the face or body, it may occur that the cutting head cannot pivot with a small pressurizing force. Further, the cutting head cannot absorb the pressure generated by moving over the curve of the face or body, and causes a skin damage and imperfect shaving.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 55-86490 discloses a shaver which is constructed so that multiple inner blades are supported by springs to move up and down separately. The inner blades move up and down individually corresponding to the curve of the user's face or body and absorb the pressure occurring in shaving.
However, for the purpose of restraining vibration of the whole cutting head when driving the inner blades, the springs having relatively large rigidities should be used. So, the multiple inner blades cannot follow the curve of the user's face or body with a small pressurizing force. Further, when the outer blade contacts slantedly to the user's face or body, the shaving is performed imperfectly since the cutting head cannot contact perpendicularly to the user's face or body.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 63-197484 discloses a shaver which is constructed so that multiple cutting heads can move up and down individually. The cutting heads adjacent to each other are connected by a ring. If one cutting head moves down according to the curve of the user's face or body, the other cutting head moves up.
However, the cutting heads cannot absorb the pressure occurring in shaving. Further, since the cutting heads do not contact perpendicularly to the user's face or body, the shaving is performed imperfectly.
Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-43443 discloses a shaver which is constructed so that the cutting head is formed integrally with a motor to move forward and backward, left and right, and up and down.
However, since a supporting point for moving the cutting head is positioned considerably low, it is difficult that the cutting head follows perfectly the curve of the user's face or body.